Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
---

Title: The Oversight Board says Meta isn't doing enough to fight celeb
deepfake scams

Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2025 19:46:36 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/the-ove...

Scams using AI deepfakes of celebrities have become an increasingly prominent
issue for Meta over the last couple of years. Now, the Oversight Board has
weighed in and has seemingly confirmed what other critics have said: Meta
isn't doing enough to enforce its own rules, and makes it far too easy for
scammers to get away with these schemes.

"Meta is likely allowing significant amounts of scam content on its platforms
to avoid potentially overenforcing a small subset of genuine celebrity
endorsements," the board wrote in its latest decision. "At-scale reviewers
are not empowered to enforce this prohibition on content that establishes a
fake persona or pretends to be a famous person in order to scam or defraud."

That conclusion came as the result of a case involving an ad for an online
casino-style game called Plinko that used an AI-manipulated video of Ronaldo
Nazário, a retired Brazilian soccer player. The ad, which according to the
board showed obvious signs of being fake, was not removed by Meta even after
it was reported as a scam more than 50 times. Meta later removed the ad, but
not the underlying Facebook post behind it until the Oversight Board agreed
to review the case. It was viewed more than 600,000 times.

The board says that the case highlights fundamental flaws in how Meta
approaches content moderation for reported scams involving celebrities and
public figures. The board says that Meta told its members that "it enforces
the policy only on escalation to ensure the person depicted in the content
did not actually endorse the product" and that individual reviewers'
"interpretation of what constitutes a ΓÇÿfake personaΓÇÖ could vary across
regions and introduce inconsistencies in enforcement.ΓÇ¥ The result,
according to the Oversight Board, is that a "significant" amount of scam
content is likely slipping through the cracks.

In its sole recommendation to Meta, the board urged the company should update
its internal guidelines, empower content reviewers to identify such scams and
train them on "indicators" of AI-manipulated content. In a statement, a
spokesperson for Meta said that "many of the Board's claims are simply
inaccurate" and pointed to a test it began last year that uses facial
recognition technology to fight "celeb-bait" scams.

ΓÇ£Scams have grown in scale and complexity in recent years, driven by
ruthless cross-border criminal networks," the spokesperson said. "As this
activity has become more persistent and sophisticated, so have our efforts to
combat it. WeΓÇÖre testing the use of facial recognition technology,
enforcing aggressively against scams, and empowering people to protect
themselves through many different on platform safety tools and warnings.
While we appreciate the Oversight BoardΓÇÖs views in this case, many of the
Board's claims are simply inaccurate and we will respond to the full
recommendation in 60 days in accordance with the bylaws.ΓÇ¥

Scams using AI deepfakes of celebrities has become a major problem for Meta
as AI tech gets cheaper and more easily accessible. Earlier this year, I
reported that dozens of pages were running ads featuring deepfakes of Elon
Musk and Fox News personalities promoting supplements that claimed to cure
diabetes. Some of these pages repeatedly ran hundreds of versions of these
ads with seemingly few repercussions. Meta disabled some of the pages after
my reporting, but similar scam ads persist on Facebook to this day. Actress
Jamie Lee Curtis also recently publicly slammed Mark Zuckerberg for not
removing a deepfaked Facebook ad that featured her (Meta removed the ad after
her public posts).

The Oversight Board similarly highlighted the scale of the problem in this
case, noting that it found thousands of video ads promoting the Plinko app in
Meta's Ad Library. It said that several of these featured AI deepfakes,
including ads featuring another Brazilian soccer star, Cristiano Ronaldo, and
Meta's own CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The Oversight Board isn't the only group that's raised the alarm about scams
on Meta's platforms. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Meta
"accounted for nearly half of all reported scams on Zelle for JPMorgan Chase
between the summers of 2023 and 2024" and that "British and Australian
regulators have found similar levels of fraud originating on MetaΓÇÖs
platforms." The paper noted that Meta is "reluctant" to add friction to its
ad-buying process and that the company "balks" at banning advertisers, even
those with a history of conducting scams.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/the-ove...
doing-enough-to-fight-celeb-deepfake-scams-194636203.html?src=rss

---
VRSS v2.1.180528